Self-publishing News: Net Neutrality and You

Next week I will be looking back at the year’s news, so unless anything massive happens this will be the last time I bring you tales from the cutting edge until the New Year. It has been a truly extraordinary year, but 2017 may have saved the most important piece of news till last, with the vote on net neutrality. I have tried to unpick it a little, but what it means for us is something that will unravel over the months to come.

The video posted here explains better and more succinctly than I could what that means. But in brief, net neutrality essentially means that internet service providers (ISPs) cannot give preferential treatment to any one content provider over any other – everyone who uses an ISP’s bandwidth has to be treated the same. This decision means that ISPs could charge more to certain companies, and possibly block others altogether. For consumers this raises the spectre of costly or slow or even lack of access to services. For innovators looking to use the internet to disrupt or dislodge established players (that’s a lot of us), it means a potentially uneven playing field.

About Dan Holloway

Dan Holloway is a novelist, poet and spoken word artist. He is the MC of the performance arts show The New Libertines, which has appeared at festivals and fringes from Manchester to Stoke Newington. In 2010 he was the winner of the 100th episode of the international spoken prose event Literary Death Match, and earlier this year he competed at the National Poetry Slam final at the Royal Albert Hall. His latest collection, The Transparency of Sutures, is available for Kindle at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Transparency-Sutures-Dan-Holloway-ebook/dp/B01A6YAA40